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Distribution
Because we are focusing our sales efforts on specific industries, we will focus on selling the Bond-a-matic to specialty distributors in those industries that we’re targeting - Metal Products and Machinery, Transportation, Communications and Utilities, Motor Vehicle Services, and Scientific Instruments, Photo Equipment and Watches. Distributors will be particularly important to selling to the customer base that currently uses adhesives, since 62% of these companies purchase instant adhesives through distributors.
However, we will not be solely reliant on distributors to sell the Bond-a-Matic, because as a part of our market development approach we will be directly selling to end-users, in which case we can deliver sold product to converts on our own, at least initially.
Sales Force
We will need a larger personal sales force to sell to both distributors and to sell directly to customers. The majority of our sales force will initially be focused on selling directly to these end-users. We will segment the sales force by industry, to align with our overall market strategy. Because we are focusing deeply on specific industries, some of our sales force will be assigned specific customer accounts within specific industries to build relationships.
A majority of our fixed costs will go towards a personal sales force (see appendix). We are making large allowances for building relationships with firms that don’t use adhesives today. We are estimating 3000 total sales calls and visits for the year. Because we are taking a market development approach, we will need to convince companies that are not currently using adhesives to change the ...